


Doctor of Philosophy

by Hyarrowen



Category: Enemy at the Door (TV)
Genre: Gen, Obscure and British Commentfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyarrowen/pseuds/Hyarrowen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for lost-spook's prompt in the Obscure and British Commentfest, "After the war."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor of Philosophy

John Ambrose was not a man to take no for an answer. Therefore although he was, by now, too advanced in years to find travel easy, he would not allow that to stop him from going to the book fair to oversee his hapless publisher's attempts to bring his “The Channel Islands: From the Ice Age to the Modern Age” to a wider audience. This magnum opus had been in construction, in that book-lined den of his, for several years longer than he had anticipated.

“Just as I thought I'd got to the end of it, along comes material for an entire new section. If I'd known what was in store for us, I'd have rushed it into print before the occupation. Well, the least they can do now is help promote the thing.”

They being, of course, not the publishers, but the people responsible for the delay in publication: to wit, the Germans. But the Frankfurt Book Fair, newly reinstated, was the oldest and most famous in the world, and there, accordingly, John Ambrose was to go.

“Well, as your doctor, I can't advise it, but if you're determined, I can't stop you,” said Philip, and prepared to make his escape.

“Ah, that's where you come in!” said Ambrose. “I can't go on my own, d'you see? But you and Mrs. Martel have been to the area before. Don't you want to go to Wiesbaden again?” and he smiled that impish smile of his. 

“No, I do not,” began Philip. “I've got far too much to do here, and you know it.”

“And you need a break; and so does your wife, and so, may I add, does Mrs. Porteous. Wiesbaden is famous for its warm baths, I believe, and she hasn't been away since Peter... well, she hasn't been away for a long time. Do her the power of good.”

Protests about Clare were swept aside. She was doing well in her quiet seclusion at the nunnery, and Clive was back on the island now. And in fact, Philip did want to see Wiesbaden again; and in Frankfurt itself, an old acquaintance of his was teaching philosophy at the university there. 

So two months later Philip and his wife and two friends were en route to Wiesbaden, in a first class railway carriage (he would say that for Ambrose, he didn't do things by halves.) The hotel was the one they had stayed in before the war, though their rooms were better; and the city itself, though full of American soldiers, was still recognisable to himself and his wife.

Olive and Helen were looking forward to having a lazy time to themselves, making the fullest use of the facilities of the spa. Therefore a couple of days later, it was just Philip and Ambrose who boarded the train to Frankfurt. On emerging from the station just half an hour down the line, Ambrose disappeared with a casual wave into the old church where the fair was being held, there to plague his unfortunate publisher with suggestions and directions, and Philip made his way to a certain café in a tree-filled square not far from the university. There he settled down in the mild October sunshine, newspaper in hand and coffee-cup on the table in front of him; and exactly on time a tall, spare figure made its way between the trees, brushing now and then at a yellowing leaf that had fallen upon him and seemed reluctant to depart his person, and fetched up at Philip's table.

He was greyer than Philip remembered him, and unfamiliar in a suit rather than the uniform of the Wehrmacht, but his lean features were the same. As always, Philip felt hopelessly rumpled beside him. That had never mattered in the slightest.

He laid aside his newspaper and rose. “Herr Doktor.” He smiled, and held out his hand. Had they ever shaken hands before? He couldn't remember. “It's good to see you again.”

There was the slightest pause. “Thank-you, Dr. Martel. I confess I'm a little surprised that you should say so – though it's a pleasant surprise, I do assure you!”

He was more diffident than he had once been.

They sat, and Philip ordered another pot of coffee, and Richter made enquiries about Olive, and the other travellers, and the journey. Gradually Philip felt their old – well, friendship was perhaps the only word for it, though yelling had come into it as often as not – friendship, then, reasserting itself. 

Sometimes he had felt they were the only two men on the island who understood each other - and other times, he was very sure he would never understand the German Kommandant. But still, Philip had made an enquiry of Richter's regiment as the chaos of the immediate post-war period had subsided, and then it had seemed pointless not to get in touch with the man himself.

“Do you find Wiesbaden much changed?” Richter was saying.

“Not as much as -” Philip caught himself before he could say London, though Richter perhaps heard it anyway. “Not as much as I'd feared. And you're barely changed yourself!”

“Outwardly, perhaps not!” Richter smiled. 

Philip tilted his head. “And inwardly..?”

Richter pensively surveyed the bottom of his empty cup, before refilling it. “I'm not sure I ever apologised to you, for sending you to Cherche Midi. I should have done.”

“Apologise? You saved my life!”

“And gave you six months of hell, and more for young Porteous. When you got back, you said _You don't know, do you_. I'm glad you could see that. But once you told me and the Major, I did know, and I suspected more. I didn't want to know. I pushed it to one side, and got on with my job. There were others, braver than I, who far did more than that.”

His wife had never been found. So much Philip had learned during their sporadic correspondence.

“What could you do? You were trapped on the island, just like the rest of us. You had no chance of doing anything – except what you actually did, making things the least bad they could be.”

“Not enough, not enough. And now here I am now, teaching philosophy at the university, to students who believe moral dilemmas are for other people. Most days, I feel a complete fraud.”

Philip cocked an eye at him. “You're talking to a medical doctor, Herr Doktor. How do you think I feel, every working day of my life?”

Richter's face broke into that peculiarly sweet smile of his, and Philip smiled back. “We would have been so much worse off with someone else. Just about anyone else, in fact. Whatever other horrors were happening, we on the island have a great deal to thank you for. You, personally. Don't forget that.

“Have some more coffee. Tell me about life in Wiesbaden these days. You'll show us around, I hope, while we're still here?”

They sat there talking at the café table, while the leaves fluttered golden in the air around them; and after a while they espied John Ambrose making his way towards them, fresh from the conquests (for so they very obviously were) of the Book Fair. It was not only university students who would never encounter a moral dilemma they couldn't send packing, nor ever know a moment's self doubt; but for his own part, Dr Martel found that he had more in common with those who did.


End file.
